SOUTHERN BEE CULTURE 71 



days and nights, spread out over the comb, in uncapped cells, and at the 

 same time the temperature is kept high in the hive. Now, when the bees 

 have removed or evaporated about all the water from the nectar so it will 

 keep without souring, or have done about as much as they can with it, it is 

 capped over, and then is honey. 



HOW BEES BUILD HONEY^COMB. 



The lover of comb honey is not apt to stop eating it and take notice of the 

 beautiful small thin hexagon-shaped wax cells it is stored in. When bees 

 need wax to cap their honey, or more comb to store it in, some special bees 

 seem to be appointed, or take up at this particular time, wax-secreting; but 

 any worker-bee in the hive can and may secrete wax ; but I have never seen 

 very young or field-bees do so. Wax-secreting bees may be found anywhere 

 in the hive, but mostly where the comb is being built ; but they do not seem 

 to take an active part in the work of comb-building. Wax-secreting bees keep 



WAX-POCKETS. 



themselves gorged with honey or nectar and are sulky, clumsy, and can 

 scarcely fly at times. Wax is secreted in eight tiny pockets under the bee's 

 body, between the rings, and extending out from these pockets or certain 

 places between the rings in tiny white thin scales which are nearly round. 

 These little specks of wax are removed by the attending bees, or the wax- 

 secreting bees themselves will very often remove them; and it is done with 

 their front feet. Then it is placed edgewise between the jaws of the bee, and 

 carried thus to where it thinks it is needed; and as the temperature is high in 

 the hive or cluster, and the little scale is very soft, it will easily adhere where 

 it is placed, and thus make a part of the comb. At times they seem to have 

 a surplus of these scales, and they will fall like tiny flakes of snow from the 

 cluster, and collect on the bottom so thickly that it can be gathered up. This 

 is often the case where new swarms have been hived, but generally they 

 are very saving of it, and will often remove it from the bottom and carry it 

 back up to where the comb is being built. Wax-secreting bees consume no 

 small amount of honey while performing this duty. 



Just how bees build comb is hard to explain; but every one who has 

 watched the interior force of bees at work knows that they do a little work 



